


How to Dance With You

by grayimperia



Category: One Piece
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29950374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayimperia/pseuds/grayimperia
Summary: Nico Robin smiles all the time, and Franky is only slowly learning how to tell her smiles apart. The amused ones, the resigned ones, the ones that don’t meet her eyes. But, as she dances, she’s not just smiling—she’s laughing.-When you meet a girl as super as Nico Robin, you learn to make sacrifices. Or, Franky learns to waltz.
Relationships: Franky/Nico Robin, Monkey D. Luffy/Vinsmoke Sanji
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	How to Dance With You

**Author's Note:**

> Post Thriller Bark

Franky was a little concerned about his new captain’s common sense when he learned that his recruitment priority list had initially gone: “swordsman, musician, cook, maybe a navigator, what’s a shipwright?” But, as Brook’s violin rises to a crescendo, Franky does think maybe there was something to the whole music first, logic second approach. It also helps that he is a _super_ dancer. 

Usopp and Luffy are swinging arm in arm, and Franky slows down to let Chopper get the hang of a few of his best dance moves. Zoro demurred from participating with a grunt, to which Luffy responded by sticking his tongue out. Nami laughs along with them but seems content to sit back and let Sanji bring her drinks rather than participate herself. And Robin. Well, maybe Franky happens to glance back at her every so often to see if she’s managed to notice just how super at dancing he is. 

“Nico Robin,” he says, only slightly breathless. “Come, join in!”

“Robin!” Chopper says, bouncing up and down. “It’s really fun, Robin!”

She smiles. “It sure looks like it, Doctor-san. But I’m afraid this song is a little too fast for me.”

“What are you talking about?” Luffy calls over from where he’s making himself and Usopp dizzy with their spinning. “Fast songs are the best!”

“Yeah!” Franky says, extending a hand to her. “You probably have just never had a super enough partner.”

Robin waves his offer away. “I don’t think that’s the case.”

“Would you prefer a different song, Robin-san?” Brook asks, swaying in time with his own playing. “Perhaps a waltz?”

“There’s no need to change on my account. Though…” she pauses and a different smile slides onto her face. “I have enjoyed waltzing in the past.”

“Say no more,” Brook says, and his violin slows, a more precise 1-2-3 than the bouncing pirate song. 

Luffy stops spinning abruptly, letting Usopp collapse from the sudden lack of momentum. “Huh? This song is weird. How are you supposed to dance to it?”

“Usually with a partner,” Robin says. 

“Ooh, ooh, Robin! Be my partner!”

Franky frowns as Luffy bounces over to her. Admittedly, Franky has never waltzed in his life, and he’s very aware Luffy has no idea he’s stealing his opportunity to impress. But his mood still bounds back when Robin says, “Do you know how to waltz, Captain-san?” and Luffy replies, “It’s a mystery dance, right?”

Sanji scoffs. “Dumbass, there’s certain steps you have to follow. If you don’t you’ll step on her feet. ”

“Do you know how to waltz, Sanji-san?” Brook asks. 

“Of course.”

“Really?” Nami asks. “I never knew that.”

“Well, if you would like to dance, Nami-san, I would be delighted to at any time. Just say the word!”

Sanji bows to her, and Franky’s expecting her standard rejection but she seems a bit more flustered than usual as she waves her hands. “Oh, waltzes aren’t really my thing.”

“You don’t know how, do you?” Usopp asks from his place on the ground.

“Of course she knows how!” Sanji says. “Nami-san is a proper lady!”

“Y-Yeah!” Nami says. “I just don’t want to right now.”

And perhaps it’s just to save Nami from embarrassment, but Robin stands and extends a hand towards Sanji. “I think I might,” she says. “And we’ve kept our musician waiting for quite some time.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Brook says. “I could play this song all day. It’s music to my ears. Except I don’t have any ears.”

Sanji beams at Robin, and Franky knows how this goes. They’ll dance for a step or two, Sanji will say something stupid, and they’ll all laugh and go back to a song Luffy likes. But then Robin places her hand on Sanji’s shoulder and his clasps high on her waist. They glide back and forth in smooth movements, and Robin laughs when Sanji raises his arm for her to spin. 

“Yo-ho-ho,” Brook laughs to himself. “You’re quite good, Sanji-san.”

“It’s a skill every gentleman should have.”

Luffy narrows his eyes as if their movements are a great puzzle. “It doesn’t look that hard. Chopper! Be my partner!”

“Huh? O-Okay!”

Luffy and Chopper make a rather amusing parallel next to Robin and Sanji, though it seems that a rubbery foot doesn’t hurt as much when it collides with a hoof. But Franky mostly watches Robin. Nico Robin smiles all the time, and Franky is only slowly learning how to tell her smiles apart. The amused ones, the resigned ones, the ones that don’t meet her eyes. But, as Sanji lifts her into the air, she’s not just smiling—she’s laughing.

-

Franky lingers in the doorway to the galley, the frame a little too small for his body. Sanji’s gathered the dishes from dinner into the sink and is elbow deep in suds when he first eyes him. “Need something?”

“Nah.”

Franky doesn’t move. Sanji watches him for another moment before rolling his eyes and continuing his work. 

Franky rehearsed this conversation. He’ll ask his favor, bro-to-bro, they’ll get the job done in a single night, and everything will be smooth sailing from there. There’s no need to hesitate, especially since Sanji is far from the scariest member of the crew. 

“So, Curly-bro,” Franky says. “There’s something I wanna ask you.”

Sanji takes his time, wiping his hands on a dish towel as the last of the bubbles slide down the drain. “If you wanted me to make you something, you should have asked earlier. Or at least helped clean up.”

“No, I’m good on food. Got plenty of cola.”

“You can’t survive on just cola.”

“Eh, I think you can.”

Sanji shakes his head but lights a cigarette instead of responding. 

“Anyway, I need your help with something. And,” Franky takes a deep breath and bows his head, “know that I’m asking you this as a man.”

“As opposed to what?”

“Nevermind that! Sanji, teach me how to dance! Pretty please!”

Sanji blinks. “What.”

“C’mon, you heard me! I need you to teach me how to dance all formally and crap! And I said pretty please!”

“No wait, hold on.” He takes a drag from his cigarette, and Franky can’t help but fidget in the silence. “You, Franky, want me to teach you how to waltz?”

“Yes!”

“Well, first off it’s impossible.”

“What!? Why!?”

“Because only gentlemen can be taught, and gentlemen wear pants.”

“Oh come on,” Franky whines. “Take this seriously! I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t have real reasons. I’m not the kind of guy to do things halfway.” Sanji is still staring at him dubiously, and Franky rubs at the back of his head, making eye contact with the wall. “The truth is, seeing how happy Robin was dancing, it made me wanna do this for her so she can laugh like that more often.”

“I see. In that case,” Sanji nods, “absolutely not.”

“What!?”

“Stop shouting,” Sanji snaps. “And did you really think I’d just agree to help you steal Robin-chan from me?”

Franky grits his teeth. “I’m not stealing anything from anybody. I just want to make Robin happy, even if it’s kind of embarrassing. She never likes my inventions, so I figured there’s gotta be something else I can do, and…”

Sanji crosses his arms. “And what?”

Franky takes a deep breath and a step forward. He stares straight into Sanji’s eyes, who’s looking at him like he’s lost his mind. “And when you meet a girl as super as Nico Robin, a real man stops at nothing to make her smile. I figured a guy like you would understand how important it is making women happy.” Franky holds out an oversized hand. “Cook-bro, will you help me?”

Sanji presses the heel of his hand to his visible eye and lets out a long suffering groan. “The things I do for love,” he mumbles to himself. “Alright, fine. Just don’t be weird about this.”

“You have my super thanks! But I’m still not going to put on pants.”

“I just said not to be weird!”

-

They meet in Zoro’s training room late in the evening. Franky glances around the room as if Zoro might suddenly jump out at them. “Won’t Zoro-bro get mad if we’re here and he wants to train?”

Sanji shakes his head. “If he tries to train right now, I’ll kick his shitty teeth in.”

“Uh, why?”

“As if I need a reason,” Sanji says, lighting a cigarette. He pauses, taking a drag before exhaling the smoke out with a deep sigh. “We’re waiting for Brook. And I should have said this before, but this doesn’t leave this room. Got it?”

“Got it!” Franky parrots back. 

When Brook finally does arrive and have the entire situation explained to him, there are many yo-ho-hos to be had, and Franky winces as he thinks the crack in Brook’s skull grows a bit wider after a particularly brutal kick to the head. For his part, Brook doesn’t seem too perturbed, instead sweeping his bow slowly across his violin. “This is all so romantic. You are both moving my heart. Except I don’t have a heart. Yo-ho-ho!”

Sanji pinches the bridge of his nose, cursing to himself for a moment. “Alright,” he says after another drag. “Give me your hands.”

Franky holds out his oversized hands before looking them over in comparison to Sanji’s. Robin has normal person hands. Tons of them, in fact. “Should I use the little hands instead?” He releases one of the smaller white hands from inside to punctuate his question. 

Sanji gapes at him before hissing, “Absolutely not. Just—” he takes a step closer, resting one of his hands on Franky’s shoulder and taking Franky’s hand by his fingers. It sort of works, Franky thinks. And Robin is taller than Sanji, so theoretically this will be easier with her as his partner. Not to mention she could always grow more hands, extend her arms to reach higher and higher as he built himself up and away off the ground. 

“Now put your other hand on my waist,” Sanji snaps him out of his thoughts. 

Franky’s hand stretches nearly all the way from Sanji’s shoulder to his hip, which produces another irritated sigh. Another plus about having Robin as his partner instead—he is almost 99% sure she won’t call him a shitty robot idiot.

Brook hums. “Halfway between a dance and an embrace. How romantic.”

Sanji mutters to himself something that sounded distinctly like, “Do it for Robin-chan, do it for Robin-chan.”

“Oh, to be young,” Brook says. “I was quite the dancer—still am. There’s nothing quite like holding a young, delicate maiden in your arms and sweeping her across the ballroom floor. I hope you are enjoying your preview, Franky-san—”

It is, admittedly, impressive how fast Sanji dashes across the room to smash Brook’s skull to the floor with one swift kick.

Sanji stomps back over to Franky, grabbing his hand much more forcefully as Brook staggers back to his feet. “Just play the damn song,” Sanji grumbles, to which Brook complies. “And _slowly_. Franky’s gonna need all the shitty help he can get.”

Franky would’ve been more upset at Sanji’s low expectations if they didn’t prove to be founded almost immediately. “Sorry about that, bro,” Franky says after stepping on one of his feet during their first few strides. Then a few moments later, “Sorry, bro,” and when Sanji attempts to teach him how to turn, “My bad. Sorry, bro—”

“I get it.” Sanji drops his hand from Franky’s oversized shoulder. “You’re really lucky I barely have any feeling in my feet anyway. Imagine if I was poor Robin-chan.”

Franky rubs the back of his head. Picturing Robin’s pained smile if one of his heavy metal feet did crash down on her does nothing to alleviate his guilt. “I just don’t get why I keep messing up. I understand everything you’re saying, but it’s still not working out.”

“Ah,” Brook says. “Sometimes the mind is strong but the body cannot follow.”

“And sometimes the mind has a really shitty sense of rhythm,” Sanji says. 

“Which doesn’t make any sense because I have an internal clock,” Franky says. To prove his point he bangs on his chest to open a small panel, revealing his internal clock. 

Brook tilts his head. “Do you have an internal metronome as well?”

“No, but I could probably install one… maybe add a laser while I’m at it, and—”

Sanji slams the panel shut and thrusts a finger in Franky’s face. “Do not do that when you are dancing with Robin-chan! Or in front of Robin-chan at all!”

“I think it could help,” Brook says, casually opening the top of his skull. “I once kept a metronome in my head to learn a difficult piece. Then I forgot I left it in there for a month and thought I was losing my mind, yo-ho-ho!”

Franky and Sanji both turn to Brook as he continues nonchalantly playing. “That’s, uh, an interesting story, Skeleton-bro,” Franky said. “Anyway, doing something like that would probably be cheating. Especially since Nico Robin’s had to learn the hard way and she’s super at it.”

Sanji pulls a face and opens his mouth to say something, before seeming to change his mind. “Let’s just try one more time. Look at my feet if you have to.”

They’ve just resumed positions when the thundering sound of footsteps and a call of, “Sanji! Food!” echoes down to them. Luffy more or less tumbles into the room, landing in a pile of his own limbs, with one hand securing his hat to his head. “Sanji—huh?”

Luffy blinks as he takes in the scene before him, and Sanji shoves Franky’s hands off of him. “I’ll get you food in a minute! Just get out, and—”

“You guys are dancing?” Luffy asks, jumping to his feet. “I want to dance, too!”

Sanji waves his hands desperately as Luffy starts bouncing in place. “No, we’re—”

“Sanji-san is teaching Franky-san how to waltz,” Brook says. “Because he wants to dance with Robin-san.”

Sanji rounds on him. “I told you this doesn’t leave this room!”

“But we’re still in Zoro-san’s training room.”

Sanji begins to yell at him as Luffy backs out of the room, shouting, “Usopp, Chopper! Come learn how to dance!”

Sanji’s entire face starts to turn red from frustration as Franky places a consoling hand on his back. 

Franky’s internal clock tells him it’s stretched past one in the morning, but at the very least, with Chopper in heavy point, he’s about the right height for Franky to practice with. With Sanji focused on yelling at Luffy and Usopp’s poor performance, Franky also feels the pressure lighten, allowing him to focus. Chopper watching their feet and quietly chanting, “1-2-3,” under his breath also helps.

“Usopp, you’re really bad at this,” Luffy complains. 

“Me!? You’re the one who keeps using the wrong foot!”

Luffy lets his rubber neck loll his head all the way backwards. “Sanji, this is boring. I want to learn a fun dance.”

“Take it up with the shitty robot. This was his idea,” Sanji says. “And waltzing isn’t about fun. It’s about romance and passion.”

Luffy wrinkles his nose. “Sounds boring.”

“Yo-ho-ho, you are too quick to judge, Captain-san,” Brook says. “Sanji-san is correct. A waltz is not just about good timing but grace and emotion. I believe that if you feel strongly for your partner, then the fluidity and feelings will accommodate for any missteps.”

Luffy finally lets Usopp go. “So you just have to do it with someone you really like?”

Franky shakes his head as he pulls away from Chopper. “Wish that were the case, but you can’t go in with a partner who’s great, when you don’t know anything.”

“Brook sort of has a point.” Sanji says, looking exhausted as he lights a cigarette. “And don’t worry too much. Robin-chan’s not that good either.”

Franky blinks at him. “What?”

Sanji’s brain catches up to what he just said as he verbally backspaces. “I-I didn’t say that! Robin-chan is the best at dancing! She just has her own style!”

Brook laughs. “So we were keeping it a secret, after all.”

“Wait so Robin sucks, too?” Luffy asks. 

“She doesn’t!”

“She obviously knows the basics,” Brook says. “But little more than that. Sanji-san adjusted to a more simplified version of the dance so she could follow along better.”

“Shut up!”

“Isn’t this good news?” Usopp asks. “Now Franky can be bad, and it doesn’t matter.”

Franky thinks it over as Sanji shouts at Usopp and Brook. Robin had laughed and smiled and wasn’t any good at actually moving her feet in time. In the past, Franky had danced without music, with only his own subpar guitar playing, and with an entire crowd of people booing him. But it hadn’t mattered. 

Brook hasn’t stopped playing, and Chopper is trying to get in between Sanji and Usopp, who look like they’re about to come to one-sided blows while Luffy clings to Sanji’s back, demanding food and more dance lessons. Franky chuckles under his breath as he leaves the room, passing a confused Zoro on his way out. 

The screaming match behind him intensifies, but Franky’s mind is already made up. It’s not about the skill, it’s about the passion. And, as he wipes a stray tear from his eyes, he knows no man can truly beat him in passion. 

-

The next evening the nice weather has held strong, and dinner is a picnic out on the deck. Apparently there was a bit of a scuffle after Franky left last night, and he had spent most of the day making repairs to Zoro’s training room. He did predict something like that was bound to happen, but it meant that he hadn’t been able to see much of Robin all day. 

But there she was now, smiling behind her cup of coffee while the others laughed and rolled around on the deck. 

The sun was just beginning to set when Franky turned to Brook. “Hey, Skeleton-bro, play us a waltz.” Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees Robin sit up a little straighter in her chair.

Brook laughs as he flawlessly transitions from the previous rambunctious tune to Franky’s request. Nami raises an eyebrow. “Again? I thought you guys had your fill yesterday.”

Sanji immediately slaps a hand over Luffy’s mouth as he starts to give their poorly kept secret away. 

Franky pays them little mind and extends a hand to Robin. “Nico Robin, wanna give it a try?”

She smirks but takes his hand. “Have you improved while I wasn’t looking?”

“I’ve always been a super dancer.”

She summons a chain of hands to reach up to his shoulder. “And I have eyes in interesting places.”

Franky stumbles a bit at her admission, but Robin leads them forward, a half beat off of Brook’s rhythm. Robin remains composed as they begin to spin, and Franky follows along with her. It’s only when they’ve set a decent pace that he bends her for a dip, which causes her mysterious smile to grow. Then, on the upswing, more arms sprout from her hand, high enough for Franky to twirl under. 

The rest of the group watch, Nami leaning forward curiously. “Is this what all that racket was about last night? I thought I heard this song over the screaming.”

Sanji takes the opportunity to slide over to her and extend his hand. “If there are any other ladies who would like to dance, then I would be happy to—”

“Ooh! Ooh! Me!” Luffy jumps up from his seat to grab Sanji’s hand. “I want a turn!”

“I was asking Nami-san!”

“But I want to go first!” Luffy twists his neck like an owl to face Nami. “Nami, I’m going to dance with Sanji first. You have to wait.”

She shoots him a thumbs up. “Sounds good. Take all the time you want.”

“Wait, no!” Sanji protests as Luffy starts dragging him away. “Luffy, get off—”

“But I want to dance like Franky and Robin!” Luffy pouts. “And Brook said you’re only good at dancing if you do it with someone you really like!”

Sanji’s entire face turns red as he finally lets Luffy start bungling their way through Brook’s waltz.

Usopp takes up Robin’s chair (and Robin’s half finished drink) next to Nami, who leans over to him. “Just what did I miss out on last night?”

“You know,” Usopp says, taking a sip of Robin’s coffee. “I was there—watched the whole thing happen—and I honestly can’t tell you.”

Over in the corner, Chopper approaches Zoro who belatedly stands and lets Chopper climb on to his shoulders to get a better view and shake a wayward tambourine along to the rhythm. Luffy bends his spine in half, leaning backwards far too much on a dip, before snapping up and throwing all form out the window with a laugh, wrapping his arms around Sanji’s neck. 

But Franky doesn’t pay much attention to any of that. His performance with Robin ends up not even being close to what he was trying to learn the previous night, but Robin laughs and laughs, and summons more hands, and laughs some more.

**Author's Note:**

> And Franky's birthday! I know the little hands inside of his big hands is post-time skip but I liked the joke too much to axe it. Also thank you for the response on my last fic? I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was blown away by the response!


End file.
